Scott Becker

You could have a controlled economy, a socialist economy, a communist economy.

Sooner or later, those economies become even a billion times more corrupt than almost any capitalist economy, although you've got plenty of corruption in the dictator-driven capitalist countries.

In any event, defensive capitalism, no one's leaving here on a raft to go to a socialist country.

Second, it might not be a great system, but it's the best system that we have.

And I know that's a little bit like I have a close friend who's short, and that's like calling him the tallest midget.

And you have to remember,

I'm short as well, just not as short as him.

We love him to death.

And one of my favorite jokes is to come up to him and say to him, oh, my God, my eyesight is so bad.

Is that X or Y?

And X or Y are two people that are shorter than my very short friend.

But this is a similar concept as capitalism may not be perfect, but it is by far the tallest midget.

And we're lucky we have it.

Thank you for listening to the Becker Business and the Becker Private Equity podcast.

This is Scott Becker with the Becker Business Podcast and the Becker Private Equity Podcast.

Today's discussion is the big private equity funds start to make up some ground.

So here's the deal this year.

For most of this year, the big private equity funds have been down about 20% year to date, and it's basically due to the fact there's been very little exit activity.

You're doing fine on fee income, but not doing enough investing and not doing enough exits.

Recently, the private equity funds have started to rebound, and I'll just give you a quick rundown of the big four public ones and what's going on there.